Will the real Aztecs show up now?

Teammates embrace Boise State guard Derrick Marks (center), who blocked a shot in the final minute that would have cut the Broncos' lead over San Diego State to one point. Marks also had 27 points.
Darin Oswald — AP

Teammates embrace Boise State guard Derrick Marks (center), who blocked a shot in the final minute that would have cut the Broncos' lead over San Diego State to one point. Marks also had 27 points.
/ AP

D.J. Gay spent a break from his professional team in Italy last month visiting his alma mater, watching practices, attending a game, catching up with the coaches, reconnecting with his former teammates.

After a few days, he made an interesting observation about the current San Diego State basketball team.

“When I talk to them,” Gay said, “all they talk about is winning in the (NCAA) tournament. They want to get to the tournament and win. That’s their goal, to get in the tournament and win. That’s what they talk about.”

Maybe they indeed let their focus stray from the grind of the regular season to tantalizing visions of March. Maybe they shifted their emphasis and expectation from a four-month body of work to a wildly unpredictably three-week spring fling. Maybe it is the natural byproduct of being picked first in the Mountain West and finishing tied for fourth. Maybe it is the complacency of, according to virtually every prognosticator, being safely in the NCAA Tournament field for a fourth straight year?

But whatever the reason, or the truth, it is moot now. The regular season is over. Let the tournaments begin.

Opportunity awaits. Dreamy possibility awaits.

Senior guard Chase Tapley put it like this, as his team prepared to play Boise State on Wednesday night (9 p.m., CBS Sports Network) in the conference tournament in Las Vegas:

“Because of the regular season we had, I don’t want to say we didn’t meet people’s expectations, but we always knew we have pieces and the team to make a run in the NCAA Tournament, to get to an Elite Eight, a Final Four.”

The question, of course, becomes whether you can flick a switch and suddenly become the team everyone expected, or you have long since been consigned to your fate.

“They have a level of confidence, they have a level of moxie, whatever you want to call it,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said. “They’ve been there, done that. They know what they’re doing.”

The game matches teams with identical 21-9 overall and 9-7 conference records, and teams that played four days earlier at Boise’s Taco Bell Arena.

There are two ways you can digest the Broncos’ 69-65 victory, the first in school history against SDSU after faltering three times over the past two seasons in the final seconds (including the quarterfinals of the 2012 conference tournament). Either it empowered them, evaporating some sort of mental block against the Aztecs. Or it gave them a false sense of hope against a team that is built for the conference tournament, that has reached the championship game the last four years and won twice.

The game in Boise was largely meaningless for the Aztecs, with no realistic hope of getting anything other than the No. 4 seed and a spot in the 9 p.m. quarterfinal at the Thomas & Mack Center. And for the first half, they played that way – failing to make a basket in their first 11 possessions, shooting 25.9 percent, trailing by 16 points.

The second half, though, showed a different Aztecs team, a different mindset, and with 21 seconds left they were down three and Xavier Thames was shooting a seemingly open layup to cut it to one – before Boise State’s Derrick Marks swooped in from behind and blocked it to preserve the win.

“We’ve got a lot of grit, a lot of character on this team,” Coach Steve Fisher said.

Boise State essentially became a two-man team in the second half Saturday, with Marks and fellow sophomore guard Anthony Drmic scoring 34 of its 38 points and all of them over the final 14½ minutes. They combined for 50 points, with Marks getting 22 of his 27 in the second half.

But the Aztecs had just one full day of prep for Saturday’s game, having played Wednesday and traveling Friday. It will be interesting to see with more time – and more at stake – if or how they tweak their defensive schemes against the guard-oriented Broncos attack.

The Xs and Os may make a difference. Heart and soul figures to be a bigger factor.

Are the Aztecs the team that struggled to win close games and collapsed under the weight of unrealized expectations? Or were they patiently waiting for the time of year that – let’s be honest – really matters in college basketball?

“I’m a person who likes pressure, I like playing with pressure,” said Jamaal Franklin, whose 3-pointer at the buzzer eliminated Boise State a year ago. “So if it’s a game we need to win, I like playing like that ... It makes our team play with a little more edge. We play with way more passion.”

SDSU vs. Boise State

Site/time: Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas/9 p.m. Wednesday.

TV/radio: CBS Sports Network/600-AM, 101.5-FM.

Records: Both teams are 21-9, 9-7.

Last meeting: Boise State won for the first time against SDSU, 69-65 last Saturday behind a combined 50 points from guards Derrick Marks and Anthony Drmic.

Next up: The winner plays top-seeded New Mexico or Wyoming on Friday at 6 p.m. (Thursday is an off day). The final is Saturday at 3 p.m.

Aztecs outlook: Lost in Saturday’s loss was the best half of basketball from Xavier Thames since he twisted his back 2½ months ago. He had 16 points on 5-of-10 shooting and led the Aztecs back from 15 down. He was 2 of 5 on 3s, and two of those misses just rimmed out. Coach Steve Fisher says Thames still doesn’t have his pre-injury fitness but “I’m not worried about his back any longer.” The Aztecs are 10-2 in the MW tournament in the previous four seasons, reaching the final all four years and winning in 2010 and 2011. Keep an eye on the score with five minutes to go. The Aztecs have won 90 straight when leading with five minutes left, and are 1-7 this season when they’re behind. (Two other losses came when it was tied with five minutes to go.) The only win: Feb. 6 against Boise State at Viejas Arena.

Broncos outlook: The hottest team in the league, closing the regular season by winning five of six. The lone loss was with some iffy officiating at UNLV. Of their nine losses, only four have come with a full roster (and the Broncos are at full strength now). Boise State will be wearing dark (road) jerseys as the fifth seed because, despite finishing tied for fourth, SDSU won the tiebreaker based on its victory over first-place New Mexico. The Broncos likely will need more offensive production from everyone not named Marks or Drmic after combining for just 19 points Saturday against SDSU. Asked if his team would change anything from Saturday, Coach Leon Rice said: “Everybody is always making adjustments here and there ... But Coach Fisher and his staff have seen everything. There’s nothing we can do that’s going to trick them.”